Does it offend you? On this week’s show, we’re talking about one gamer’s objection to the religious themes in Bioshock Infinite and our own sensitivities to games that push the envelope. We’ve also got talk of Fire Emblem: Awakening, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, SimCity 2.0, and more.
We close out this week’s show with a spoiler-filled discussion about the Bioshock Infinite endgame. If you haven’t finished the game yet and intend to, be sure to press stop when you hear our warning!
Episode Timeline:
0:00 – Intro
2:55 – Viewer Mail
9:05 – Hangover (Fire Emblem, Luigi’s Mansion, Guacamelee, Dishonored)
29:00 – Offended by games
57:05 – Last Call
1:00:30 – Outro
1:01:24 – Bioshock Infinite spoiler chat
Listen and Subscribe:
Connect and Interact:
This Week’s Music:
“Runner2 Theme” and “Credits” from the Runner2 Original Soundtrack by Matthew Harwood of Petrified Productions
Links:
Some Don’t Like BioShock’s Forced Baptism. Enough To Ask For A Refund. (via Kotaku)
The Worst Interview of My Career
Penny Arcade on Luigi’s Mansion
The Last Door, a free episodic horror adventure.
Good show! Being religious, I thought long and hard to try to come up with something that remotely offended me… but I couldn’t! I’ve been exposed to symbolism as well since I was a young child and I guess that’s all it is. However, I can understand if he is role-playing and feels that he is in that body, that it would be hard to continue, but I also feel that role-playing is just that- so if he can’t handle role-playing, why play at all? Anyway, since none of you are Christians, I can say, from a Christian perspective, that his response was kinda crazy to me. I even thought that maybe I didn’t understand what happened in the game (because I haven’t played it), but I asked Paul, and I read the Kotaku article, and I still don’t’ get it. He said in his letter that it would be like if you were Muslim and asked to spit in the face of Allah. Wouldn’t that just be if you were asked to spit in the face of Jesus? Even his comparison was way off to me. I just don’t get it.
When you guys mentioned how you couldn’t understand how some people could consume media if they were easily offended. My mom is actually kind of like that. She only watches certain things, reads certain things, etc. However, I’m writing a children’s novel (finished the rough draft) and she’s anxious to read it. I warned her that there is a religious theme in the book, and hoped that wouldn’t make her uncomfortable, and she said, “No…I know it’s fantasy.” Which to me- That’s a good answer! hah
Thanks for the feedback, Courtney. It was unfortunate that we didn’t have a Christian perspective on the show to chime in but I’m grateful for your perspective on this. Good for your mom for respecting the distinction between fantasy and reality — I think that gets overlooked too often in the debate over what’s “appropriate” in media.
There isn’t much that offends me in games these days. The religuous overtones in Bioshock Infinite just made the game more interesting. Any of you guys play Postal? What about phantasmagoria?
Completely forgot about Postal! That game was just vile. Good call. I haven’t heard of Phantasmagoria — I’ll have to look it up.
Yea Matt or Paul might know something about Phantasmagoria it was a slightly disturbing PC game from Sierra that came out the mid 90s.
I am only aware that Phantasmagoria exists, but I’ve never actually played it. Same with Postal. I’ve got a loose understanding of what they are.